Ogun State Police Command arrests two of its men for torturing bricklayer to death

TWO men serving with the Ogun State Police Command have been detained after they tortured a 45 year old bricklayer known as Adeshina Adewuyi to death for trying to run away when they sought to detain him.

 

In a classic case of police brutality about seven policemen attached to the Agbado Division of the Ogun State Police Command picked up the deceased around 4pm on Saturday and ordered him to enter a bus they brought to the area. Mr Adeshina was said to have declined to enter the bus, demanding to know the offence he had committed.

 

When the police insisted he follow them, Mr Adeshina reportedly fled but was chased and arrested, after which he was beaten up, bundled inside the bus and whisked away. He was later released around 7am with injuries to his back and according to eyewitnesses, the father of six was said to have been given a drug which he vomited before he died.

 

One eyewitness said: “On Saturday, some policemen came to collect money from my boss but he said he did not have any. My father wanted to cross to the other side of the road but they stopped him and he fled but one of them chased him with a motorcycle while others followed.

 

“They caught him and hit his head with the butts of their guns and he shouted for help but nobody answered. The policemen dragged him inside their bus and I can identify two of them.”

 

Turanyo Adewuyi, the deceased's wife, added that the policemen gave her husband N500 to buy food and find his way back home from the station after torturing him. She demanded that the erring cops be brought to book.

 

She said: “My husband was a bricklayer and farmer. He was going to those working with him in a building opposite our house when the policemen arrested him.

 

"They did not find anything incriminating on him but he came back around 7pm, complaining of pains and headache. We bought Paracetamol for him but he vomited it and died around 12am."

 

One police source said that the divisional police officer lined up members of the team and the deceased’s son identified two of the cops who tortured his father. Ogun State Police spokesperson, Muyiwa Adejobi, said the state commissioner of police Abdulmajid Ali, had waded into the matter, noting that the policemen would face the weight of the law if found culpable.

 

One local resident, who identified himself only as Fisayo, said policemen had turned the community into an avenue for making money. Itoki Youth Association chairman, Toluwalope Alatishe, said the incident demonstrated an utter disregard for human rights and called for the prosecution of the policemen.